Photo Essay – Old Memories of Delhi, Around Town Photo Essays by The Delhi Walla - May 31, 2013May 31, 20135 The city in past. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] The Union Jack at Red Fort and trams in Chandni Chowk. After ransacking private albums, antique books, curio stores and the internet, The Delhi Walla has built a collection of images that gives a sense of Delhi in the old days. The black & white photos showcase periods from the 1850s to the 1960s. Some pictures are disturbingly contemporary. A rag merchant is selling his wares outside the Jama Masjid; year 1944. I saw such a man in the same area just last week! A 1948 picture, captioned ‘Families living on Street’, has a woman clothed in a threadbare saree. Two naked children are sitting beside her – she is protectively holding the head of one of them.
City Food – Homemade Mango Ice Cream, Gharib Nawaz Guest House Food by The Delhi Walla - May 29, 2013May 31, 20132 A chilling cordiality. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] This is one of the most sublimely authentic ice creams to be had in Delhi. The unnamed stall at the entrance of Gharib Nawaz Guest House in the Walled City’s Matia Mahal bazaar sells homemade mango ice cream in summer as well as in winter. (Vanilla ice cream is also available.) Since the mango season is short, the fruit is obtained the rest of the year from cold storages. Muhammed Zahir prepares his specialty every morning at his house in Gali Sirkiwallan. “I slice the mangoes and mix them with boiling milk, cream, raisins and sugar,” he says, “and then I churn the combination in an old ice cream machine.” The finished product is brought
The Earthen Lamp Journal Review – On Nobody Can Love You More The Delhi Walla books by The Delhi Walla - May 27, 20131 Life in a red light district. [By KG Sreenivas] KG Sreenivas discussed Nobody Can Love You More: Life in Delhi’s Red Light District, a book by The Delhi Walla in the literary magazine Earthen Lamp Journal. Click here to read on the magazine's website or see below. IF THERE is one sentence in Mayank Austen Soofi's Nobody Can Love You More that nearly sums up the writer's interiorization of his subject, it has to be 'I'm home.' It is the end line of the second chapter titled 'No Rooms of Their Own'. Soofi is in the red light district of Delhi on GB Road close to the seventeenth century Ajmeri Gate in Old Delhi. One evening, as Soofi surveys the GB Road corridor,
City Sighting – Arundhati Roy, Tansen Marg General by The Delhi Walla - May 26, 2013May 26, 20132 A summer-time illusion. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] One summer afternoon, The Delhi Walla sighted his most beloved Delhiite – writer Arundhati Roy. The site: Central Delhi’s Tansen Marg. The author of The God of Small Things was standing under an Amaltas tree. For everyone to see. Yet, it was impossible to see her. For she was hidden behind dark sunglasses. With story-secrets in her eyes. Perspiration trickled through her hair. (Her head was covered in a white dupatta.) A minute later, Ms Roy half-opened her mouth as if she were about to blow a perfect smoke ring. A moment later, she shut down her lips. Next, she looked at the Amaltas -- the tree was covered with the season’s
City Hangout – Inter-State Bus Terminuses, Around Town Hangouts by The Delhi Walla - May 22, 2013May 22, 20130 When buses will fly. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Delhi’s international airport is named after Indira Gandhi, while Maharana Pratap has to make do with its main inter-state bus terminus. Unfair? Bus terminals, or bus addas, are not considered half as romantic as train stations and they lack the surcharged mood of an airport’s arrival lounge. They are our last resort—when the plane ticket is too steep and it’s too late to get a confirmed booking on the Shatabdi. In April 2012 the aforementioned inter-state bus terminus (ISBT) momentarily grabbed the attention of Delhiwallas, who refer to it as the Kashmere Gate ISBT—it’s at a stone’s throw from the Mughal-era gateway. For the revamped ISBT reopened after an ambitious makeover by the
City Library – Abdul Sattar’s Books, Pahari Imli Library by The Delhi Walla - May 20, 2013May 20, 20134 A vanishing world. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] One evening, The Delhi Walla knocks on the door of Abdul Sattar. In his sixties, Mr Sattar lives with two of his four children in Pahari Imli, a Walled City neighbourhood. The biggest room of his house is stacked with books. “This is my library,” he says. “I was born in this room. Here I read, eat, write and sleep.” The library has a mattress, a desk, a wooden almirah, a desktop computer, a TV, a few closets and 600 books. “Most are in Urdu and Persian and most of them are on Delhi's Mughal-era history,” says Mr Sattar. “I usually purchase my books from publishers though I have got a few old
City Notice – Electric Moon Screening, India Habitat Center General by The Delhi Walla - May 19, 2013May 19, 20130 Last chance to see a classic. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] A comi-tragedy, it’s a cult classic. Directed by Pradip Krishen, the author of Trees of Delhi, and scripted by Arundhati Roy, the author of The God of Small Things, the 1992 film Electric Moon will be screened on May 20 at India Habitat Center (IHC), Lodhi Estate. A few years ago the movie was showed at the British Council, Connaught Place. In 2011, it had a screening at the India International Center. A year later it was again shown to a packed house in IHC. "It is probably one of my last showings," says Mr Krishen, "because the print is beginning to show signs of senility!" The film’s DVD is not available on amazon.com.
City Special – The Delhi Walla on BBC Radio 4 General by The Delhi Walla - May 17, 2013May 17, 20132 Listen to this. [By Mayank Austen Soofi] BBC Radio 4 interviewed The Delhi Walla. The Bristol-based BBC presenter Chris Ledgard came to Delhi to record an episode of his weekly show Word of Mouth. The theme: Language and Politics in India. Mr Ledgard talked to newspaper editors, professors, authors and civil servants, and he also captured the delightful Indian street sounds. Click here to listen. (I’m in between and in the end.)
City Travel – Calcutta Memoirs, Bengal Travel by The Delhi Walla - May 15, 2013May 16, 201312 Like a painting. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] If French novelist Marcel Proust had lived in India, he would have lived in Calcutta. The city is like a faded watercolor painting. The Delhi Walla visited it for a week. Unlike Delhi, the old houses in Calcutta still survive. The green shuttered windows of crumbling yellow mansions preserve a genteel elegance of literary conversations and afternoon naps. I visited a retired woman in Charu Market whose modern-day flat was steeped in the same ambiance. Hardbound works of Rabindranath Tagore were stacked under her bed. DVDs of Satyajit Ray's films were stored in a drawer - next to her plasma screen TV. A tanpura was kept beside her dressing table. The woman made
Mission Delhi – Bonisha Bhattacharyya, South Park Street Cemetery Mission Delhi by The Delhi Walla - May 13, 2013May 16, 20137 One of the one percent in 13 million. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Wading through the warm, wet air of a humid May, she says, almost casually, “No, I will not say I ran away from my father’s home in Noida. That’s too romantic. I just left his house.” The Delhi Walla meets Bonisha Bhattacharyya at South Park Street Cemetery in Calcutta. In her twenties, Ms Bhattacharyya is dressed in black. Pointing to a tomb, she says, “That’s like a bath tub.” A short walk from Flurys, the famous tea room on Park Street, the generously-wooded Colonial-era cemetery is an archipelago of mausoleums, pyramids, cupolas and obelisks. These ruined structures are final addresses of British reverends, sergeants, and their wives and children